A long-running plan by the Montecito Water District board to swallow the Montecito Sanitary District in a merger hit a roadblock this month, following the unexpected resignation of a sanitary district director.
On April 22, a memorandum of understanding drafted by the water board was up for a vote at the Montecito Sanitary District board, outlining how the agencies would “coordinate and collaborate” on the “consolidation” of the Montecito water and sanitary districts and Summerland Sanitary District into “a unified entity.”
The Montecito Water District board “will be the governing body of the unified entity,” the MOU stated.
At the meeting, Montecito Sanitary District board Director Woody Barrett and Director Dorinne Lee Johnson voted to approve the water board’s MOU. But President Rock Rockenbach and Director Carter Ohlmann voted no, saying they could not agree to the “dissolution and annexation” of the Sanitary District, with the Montecito Water District running the new agency.
The 2-2 tied vote meant that the measure failed.
“The MOU as passed by the water board is certainly more favorable to the water board,” Rockenbach said.
Ohlmann said, “It would really be doing our community a service to put consolidation to rest.”
Last week’s vote on the MOU came on the heels of the resignation of sanitary board Vice President Dana Newquist, just two hours before the meeting. In a letter to the district, Newquist cited time constraints. He is the fourth director to resign from the sanitary board in the past four years.
At an April 8 board meeting, Newquist had signaled that he did not favor ceasing “efforts to consolidate” with the Montecito Water District.
“For right now, it looks like we’re going to be at loggerheads,” Rockenbach told his colleagues last week. “I wish we had gotten to this point differently, but this is where we are. The unexpected vacancy really changes a lot.”
The sanitary board has 60 days to appoint Newquist’s replacement, or the county Board of Supervisors will make the appointment.
Applications for the seat must be submitted to the sanitary district by 5 p.m. on May 8. Since the seat is up for election in November, the term served by Newquist’s replacement would be from the date of the appointment to Dec. 4.
Years-long push
At the April 22 meeting, Rockenbach and Ohlmann noted that a 2023 study of consolidation, paid for by both the Montecito water and sanitary districts, found that the potential for cost savings was limited and “in itself probably does not justify consolidation.”
Merging would make the most sense, the study concluded, if both districts decided to “move forward with a large recycled water program.” But the water district put wastewater recycling on hold two years ago because of the high cost of such programs.
“I don’t see why we’re talking about this in the first place,” Rockenbach said.
The push for consolidation of Montecito’s small independent districts goes back to the campaigns of the “Water Security Team” candidates who were hand-picked by a group of wealthy Montecitans, many of them members of the Birnam Wood and Valley Club golf courses, during the drought of 2011 to 2018.
Backed by $250,000 in donations over three election cycles, the candidates won all five water board seats and a majority on the sanitary board. Barrett, Johnson and Newquist were among the winning “Water Security Team” members.
Speaking last week in favor of district consolidation, Barrett noted that the water board’s MOU allowed any of the parties to withdraw at any time during the reorganization. He also pointed out that the water district, unlike the sanitary district, has the ability to both sell and process water.
In any case, it would take at least three years to get the consolidated agency up and running, Barrett said, adding, “If you want to be on this board, just run for reelection.”
Johnson said a benefit of having one agency would be one board and one potential rate increase, whereas Montecitans are facing separate water and sanitary rate hikes this year. Johnson also said she believed regional consolidation would facilitate grant funding.
“It is important to work on a broader scale,” she said.
No water board members or members of the public spoke at last week’s meeting. Although the consolidation vote failed, the matter could come up again: in the past, different sanitary boards have chosen to entertain or reject the concept of a potential merger with the Montecito Water District.
This November, three seats on both the Montecito water and sanitary boards are up for election.
Partnering with Santa Barbara?
Even as it rejected district consolidation, the sanitary board agreed last week to look into a different form of regional cooperation: shipping Montecito’s wastewater to the City of Santa Barbara for treatment. The board voted 4-0 to spend $110,000 on a study of the infrastructure needed for such a project and what it would cost.
Barrett said he was “adamantly, enthusiastically supporting” the idea.
“For our community to have recycling, it’s got to be a regional project,” he said, adding that the sanitary district “can’t match” the city’s economy of scale and savings on the cost of electricity.
On April 21, the Santa Barbara City Council said it would charge the Montecito Sanitary District a $100,000 fee to offset city staff time and resources if the district decided to enter into negotiations on sending its wastewater to the city for treatment. If an agreement is reached, the fee would be refunded.
According to a report for the council, the city’s El Estero wastewater treatment plant likely has the capacity to accept Montecito’s wastewater, a 10 percent increase over the city’s current average flows. But the plan must be studied in the context of projected new housing demands and the impacts of inflow to the plant during wet weather, the report said.
Entering into an agreement with the Montecito Sanitary District “would regionalize the city’s wastewater treatment, which typically offers economies of scale and results in energy, chemical and cost savings,” the report said, but it could also result in increased natural gas consumption to offset a portion of the energy needed for the additional wastewater treatment.
Ohlmann said he did not favor sending Montecito’s wastewater, technically called “effluent,” to Santa Barbara for treatment unless the city shipped it back in some form. Treated wastewater can be “of great value to a community,” Ohlmann said. It can be recycled as a non-potable supply for irrigation, or purified to drinking water standards.
“A regional plan makes good sense, but we need to involve the Montecito Water District and the community,” Ohlmann said. ” … I don’t want to give up our effluent to the city and get nothing in return.”
The sanitary district board has yet to decide whether to pay the fee and start negotiations with the city. In the meantime, the board has commissioned a $1.6 million study of how and whether to upgrade the sanitary district’s aging wastewater treatment plant on Channel Drive, across from the Santa Barbara Cemetery. An upgrade is estimated to cost at least $35 million.
Twenty percent of the infrastructure at the current plant has been found to be “past its useful life,” district officials said. There are cracks in the concrete foundations of all of the wastewater treatment basins.
The results of the studies on the plant upgrade and shipment of wastewater to the city will be available in the fall.
